So the League Cup finalists in Japan have been decided for another year, and the fact that Gamba Osaka have booked their place at Kokuritsu means that the Final is unlikely to sell out in a matter of hours, as it did last season - if it even sells out at all.

Gamba can thank a contentious penalty decision for their progression (and how often can you thank a dodgy call for a victory in Japan? Answer: just about every week), after they beat Kashima 1-0 in the first leg of their semi-final last Wednesday night.

Kashima fought back to win the second leg 3-2 at Kashima Stadium, but Gamba advanced on the away goals rule, depriving the Final of the colourful sight of thousands of Kashima fans filling one end of the National Stadium in Tokyo.

The Nabisco League Cup, as it's officially known, is sponsored by a company that makes biscuits and chips and similar sorts of savoury food items. I must say their heavily-salted chips are no match for the Potelkas that I munch on an ill-health inducing basis, and the League Cup Final also has a somewhat bland, almost stale look to it, with Kawasaki Frontale the team to take on Gamba in the championship game.

At least the Kanagawa club are in close enough proximity to bring thousands of fans to the National Stadium, although one can't help but think Kawasaki's local rivals Yokohama F. Marinos would have brought more.

At any rate Kawasaki beat Yokohama in both legs of their semi-finals, winning 2-1 at Nissan Stadium before making the ten kilometre trip back to Kawasaki to win 4-2 at  their Todoroki home and thus record a convincing 6-3 aggregate win.

A League Cup crown would go some way to vanquishing the disappointment of Kawasaki's AFC Champions League quarter-final exit at the hands of Iranian side Sepahan. It won't mask the fact that Kawasaki dropped out of the J-League title race to try and win the AFC Champions League, nor will it hide the fact that without Juninho up front, Kawasaki probably wouldn't have won half the games that they have this season.

Nevertheless Gamba Osaka have also seemingly spent the past few months busily conjuring up new ways to choke in the J-League title race. Their "star" Brazilian striker Magno Alves is injured, and the Panasonic-backed team will hope that the elusive front man has recovered in time to take to their field on November 3.

They'll need all the help they can get, because if last season's Emperor's Cup Final is anything to go by, then Gamba are perhaps one of the few teams in Japan who can't rely on a fervent support to potentially get them over the line. It must be said that on New Year's Day Gamba's spindly support was being stared down by a roaring, vociferous army of Urawa fans, but what few dedicated Gamba fans there were (when they weren't being disrupted by interlopers like myself)... they were no match for the cacaphony of noise made by Urawa's exictable fans.

Last year's League Cup Final was a cracker (do I get paid for puns like this, Nabisco?) as JEF United and Kashima Antlers went head-to-head in a clash between two teams for whom a trophy would literally make or break their season. It'll be a similar scenario for Gamba Osaka and Kawasaki Frontale, when these two out-of-sorts teams clash at the National Stadium in Tokyo on November 3.

There's nothing like bandying about some good old clichés to get your point across. So there'll be no love lost when two of Japan's biggest rivals clash at Saitama Stadium this weekend! There, I said it. Urawa are playing Gamba Osaka, and no doubt the English-language media in Japan will be working themselves into a frenzy.

Saburo Kawabuchi - head of the Japan Football Association, claimed last week that the Asian Champions League needs reformatting. It invariably does, but it's difficult to see how Kawabuchi's vision of allowing more clubs from Japan, Korea and Australia to enter is going to help clubs from South-East Asia develop.

Recently the Australian media has been falling over itself to proclaim Urawa Reds as "the biggest club in Asia." Eh? Two years ago Urawa weren't even the biggest club in Japan. Maybe that fact has been lost on the likes of Kawabuchi, who dream of full houses at matches between clubs like Urawa Reds and Sydney FC.

Of course, Urawa's final Asian Champions League encounter with Sydney on May 23 very well COULD draw a full house. But it would be a first. The reality is that clubs like Kawasaki Frontale, Gamba Osaka and anyone else that qualifies for the Champions League, will continue to play in half-empty stadiums, fielding less than full-strength teams. The fact that Urawa have somewhat bucked that trend recently (even though few media outlets pointed out that two crowds of around 30,000 in the Champions League so far still meant that Saitama Stadium was only half full) makes it easy for the media to claim that Urawa are Asia's biggest club.

The fact that they have just one league title to their name suggests that they are not. The same could be said of Gamba Osaka, with the Panasonic-funded club having only the 2005 J-League crown to show for their efforts. Yet the winds of change have blown through Japanese football, so no longer can traditional powerhouses like Kashima Antlers, Jubilo Iwata and Yokohama F. Marinos claim to be the biggest teams in the country.

These things are often cyclical, so now it's Urawa and Gamba Osaka's turn to be labelled "the biggest arch rivals in Japan!" In reality, they've probably only been rivals for two years, but since Urawa thwarted Gamba Osaka at every turn last season - and Gamba responded in kind by smashing Urawa 4-0 in the 2007 Super Cup - this match is sure to be a hotly contested affair.

There are plenty of stars on show, and Marcus Tulio Tanaka's tussle with Magno Alves should prove fascinating. There will also be plenty of scrutiny on Urawa's Brazilian striker Washington - if he gets on the pitch. Out-of-form, heavily criticised, dropped and then restored...now Washington "supposedly" has an injury, but the rumours coming out of Saitama are that the temperamental striker doesn't see eye to eye with new coach Holger Osieck.  

Anyway, it should prove an exciting match, irrespective of how dubious any claims of "the biggest club in..." are. Gamba are currently on top of the table, while Urawa are in second, and with the likes of Jubilo Iwata, Yokohama F. Marinos and Kashima Antlers all floating about in mid-table, it looks like the new status quo of Japanese football is here to stay for some time yet.

Wow, sorry for the cryptic Raised Fist title. Who would have thought that a kid who wears glasses listens to dodgy Swedish metalcore?

But moving right along, the J-League is indeed back and just like those breakdown-crushing, bicep-rippling Swedes, it may or may not be stronger than ever. FC Tokyo and Jubilo Iwata are certainly stronger, although ironically Tokyo strengthened by signing some of Jubilo's surplus requirements for this season. In Takashi Fukunishi (and to a lesser extent, Takayuki Chano), FC Tokyo may finally find some of the leadership and experience that they lacked last season. Yet in cutting loose the aforementioned Fukunishi and Chano (as well as Toshihiro Hattori and Hiroshi Nanami), Jubilo may free up room in their squad for several of their promising youngsters to come through. It worked last season with Yoshiaki Ota, and it could reap even bigger rewards this season.

Elsewhere, Urawa are still licking their wounds from a 4-0 thrashing handed out by Gamba Osaka in the Super Cup last weekend. Urawa may have been missing a few players through injury - including 2006 J-League MVP Marcus Tulio Tanaka, but given that they've assembled a squad that is the envy of every other J-League team, one couldn't help but notice the muffled cheers of joy from fans of every other J-League club, at the spanking handed out by Gamba. Spare a thought for Urawa's cross-town rivals Omiya Ardija though - they take on a potentially rampant Gamba on Saturday evening. (Actually spare a thought for last season's J2 champions Yokohama FC. They take on a potentially vengeful Urawa in their first ever top flight match!).

Kashiwa Reysol take on Jubilo on Sunday afternoon, but I reckon a far more interesting match-up takes place between Nagoya Grampus Eight and JEF United, in a match that could be billed as "the battle of the biggest mid-table clubs." Nagoya have the explosive Frode Johnsen up front, and his duel with JEF United's new Serbian defender Nenad Dordevic could prove fascinating. Whoever losses this match could be in for a nightmare season.

Personally, I'll be at Nihondaira Stadium this weekend, and it looks like I won't be the only one. As of writing, there were just 1,000 tickets left for Shimizu S-Pulse's clash with promoted outfit Vissel Kobe. The visitors can expect a hostile atmosphere (well, as hostile as Japanese crowds get) at a packed Nihondaira, and they'll have their hands full containing the likes of Fujimoto, Hyodo and co. Not to mention new signings Akinori Nishizawa and Fernandinho.

That's right kids, the J-League is back! And I for one, couldn't be happier.

Gamba Osaka probably do. Their nightmare run of crucial losses to Urawa Reds began in last season's Super Cup, when they were spanked 3-1 in front of 35,674 fans at the National Stadium in Tokyo. They hit back - kind of, by drawing 1-1 with Urawa on the opening weekend of the 2006 season, but they then lost 3-2 in the last round of the J-League, to hand the crown to Urawa. To top it off, they also lost 1-0 in the Emperor's Cup Final, despite outplaying the Saitama-based club for the entire match.

So it's back to the drawing board for Gamba, and they might look upon this match with some degree of tedium, given that the team standing in the way of a potential piece of silverware is the ubiquitous Urawa. Fans in Japan could be forgiven for getting slightly bored with the endless Gamba - Urawa grudge matches, but the J-League has never shied away from giving a dead horse its proverbial flogging. Urawa won the double last season, meaning the traditional showdown between League and Cup winners was made redundant, with Cup runner's-up Gamba getting the nod over Kawasaki Frontale, who finished second place in the league.

There are actually some talking points in this match - and its not just the debut of Yuki Abe in Urawa colours that has the fans buzzing...or at least, humming softly. Last season Gamba Osaka scored 80 goals in the league - 42 of them coming from their strike force of Magno Alves and Ryuji Bando, but they conceded 48. Their chance to catch Urawa on the final day of the season was hindered by the fact that the Reds had a better goal difference than Gamba. So what has the club decided to do? Naturally they have decided to sign another high-profile striker!

By bringing in Bare, who scored 14 goals for Ventforet Kofu last season, coach Akira Nishino seriously risks upsetting the balance of his side. How three of the more fragile egos in Japanese football fit into two striking positions is anyone's guess - unless Gamba opt for a 3-4-3 formation this season, which could see them concede even more goals against teams top-heavy with quality midfielders. Like Urawa.

At any rate, the Super Cup clash between Urawa and Gamba promises to be a mildly interesting affair. I won't be there personally - there's only so much of the National Stadium that I can take, but rest assured, I'll be putting my feet up and occasionally flicking over to the game from whatever bizarre soap opera I'm watching, to bring you all the thrills, chills and occasional spills of the match.

Did you know that the average armadillo grows to about 75 centimetres (or 30 inches, for you metric-phobes out there) in length? I just looked it up on Wikipedia. I know it's not football related, but I'd give anything not to re-live the 2007 Emperor's Cup Final.

It should have been a great game! It wasn't. These things happen in football. Urawa beat Gamba Osaka in the 2007 Emperor's Cup Final in fortuitous circumstances. They were lucky to beat Avispa Fukuoka, Jubilo Iwata and to a lesser extent, Kashima Antlers in the rounds preceeding the Final, so it was hardly surprising that luck should favour the Saitama club on the day.

There would have been no need for luck had Ryuji Bando or Magno Alves done what they are paid to do, and that is put the ball in the back of the net. Magno Alves in particular is a fascinating player to watch. On a day when Urawa's own Brazilian striker was enjoying the sunshine on a Brazilian beach (or maybe he wasn't, but that's where I wanted to be come half-time), Alves had the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the skills that saw him share the golden boot with Washington. Instead he demonstrated the skills that lead many J-League fans to believe that he's not in quite the same class as Washington.

Alves spent most of the match pointing and shouting - sometimes aiming withering glares in the direction of his strike partner Bando, often running this way, sometimes running that, but never running in a direction that was going to assist Gamba Osaka in any particular way. In fact, Alves seemed to exert most of his energy in trying to get out of the way of actually doing something useful. When the ball did land at his feet, he seemed startled, and would either pass it straight to a Urawa defender, or otherwise reel off one the hopelessly inaccurate shots that seem to be the forté of his game.

Perhaps I'm being a bit harsh on old Alves. He was probably just cold. I know I was cold. As an Aussie, I use to laugh at the descriptions of "bitter cold" when I listened to the FA Cup Third Round on the World Service as a youngster. That is until I experienced it myself. Once, in a feat of idiocy I am yet to match, I ventured out to the Südstadion to cheer on the hapless Fortuna Köln in the derby against Fortuna Düsseldorf. Fortuna Köln were in such desperate need of support, I concluded, that I decided to make my jersey visible. So I piled layer upon layer of clothing under my jersey and set out for the game. It snowed. I nearly caught hypothermia. Freezing, I went to leave five minutes before the end, but turned on my heel at the gate and stood just long enough to watch Frank Süs score a last minute winner. Bless him for it, because if he hadn't scored that goal then I might never have watched football again.

Now where was I? Ah yes, the Emperor's Cup Final. It was boring. I mean, it had its moments, such as Akira Kaji heading the ball straight at ex-Gamba goalkeeper Ryota Tsuzuki in the Urawa goal. Or Akihiro Ienaga fashioning some half-decent chances that didn't end up with him infuriatingly taking the wrong option at a vital moment, which he seems to have a tendency to do. On the whole though, the entire game was tedious.

It might have been more memorable if it was settled by a cracking pile-driver, two minutes from the end. Instead it was settled by a scrappy counter-attack, when substitute Masayuki Okano burst through what appeared to an optimistic 0-0-10 formation on Gamba's part, to send in a low cross to Yuichiro Nagai - who was deputising for Washington up front. The Brazilian marksman probably would have blasted a hole in the back of the net, but Nagai prefers a more subtle option, so he subtly fired the ball straight at Naoki Matsuyo with all the power of a weak kitten. Matsuyo rather unhelpfully diverted the ball straight into the goal, to send the majority of the 46,880 strong crowd into spasms of wild relief. No one could have put up with another thirty minutes of that in extra-time.

And so, Urawa Reds become the first team to win the double since Kashima Antlers in 2000. The match also marked the end of Guido Buchwald's three years in charge at the club. He returns to Germany having successfully retained the Emperor's Cup that Urawa won for the first time last season, not to mention having guided the club to their first ever J-League crown. Midfielder Alessandro Santos has also left Urawa to sign with Salzburg in Austria, where he will be joined by Gamba Osaka's popular defender Tsuneyasu Miyamoto. Miyamoto was no doubt distraught at not having ended his Gamba career by lifting the Emperor's Cup for the first time in the club's history. This is a match that Miyamoto will no doubt not look back on with fond memories. But hey, at least he didn't have to watch it!

In my last blog, I hypothesized that Urawa Reds couldn't possibly receive more help in their quest to retain the Emperor's Cup. I was wrong.

In their dramatic 10-9 penalty shoot-out quarter-final win over Jubilo Iwata, Urawa's substitute midfielder Tomoyuki Sakai had his spot-kick saved by Jubilo's stand-in goalkeeper Yohei Sato. For some inexplicable reason, referee Masayoshi Okada ordered the spot-kick to be retaken. Sakai converted at the second attempt, and Jubilo defender Yusuke Inuzuka was the unfortunate player to miss, rolling his penalty wide to ultimately hand Urawa a semi-final birth, after a pulsating 3-3 draw in normal time.

Urawa used that let-off to maximum effect, beating Kashima Antlers 2-1 in Saturday's semi-final, to book a grudge match against Gamba Osaka in the Emperor's Cup Final in Tokyo on New Year's Day. You might remember that it was Gamba who came to Fortress Saitama, in the hope of claiming an improbable victory (by three goals, no less) on the last day of the J-League season, to regain the J-League title they won in 2005. Urawa ended up prevailing in that match to clinch the 2006 J-League crown, and the Osaka outfit will be hell bent on extracting revenge.

Gamba booked their own place in the final with a comfortable 2-1 win over Second Division club Consadole Sapporo in the other semi-final. The win means that talismanic captain Tsuneyasu Miyamoto - who lead Japan at both the 2002 and 2006 FIFA World Cups, will play at least one more match in the blue and black jersey. The tenacious defender set up Masafumi Maeda's winner against Sapporo, but he will join fellow Japan international and former Urawa midfielder Alessandro Santos at Red Bull Salzburg in Austria, next season.

The other man calling it a day - in what will be an emotional send-off at the National Stadium in Tokyo, is Urawa's popular German manager Guido Buchwald. After finally leading the Saitama club to the J-League crown they so desperately desired, Buchwald has decided to return to Germany to spend more time with his family. Holger Osiek will return for his second spell in charge at Urawa, and the players will be keen to send Buchwald off as a winner and impress their new coach. One man will have to miss out though, and emotions will be high, as fans of both Buchwald and Gamba's Miyamoto urge their heroes on to victory.

At any rate, to say that this is a highly anticipated affair would be an understatement. The National Stadium will be rocking, as both Urawa and Gamba look to end their seasons on a cracking high, and start 2007 on a winning note.

Urawa Reds are the 2006 J-League champions, after they saw off Gamba Osaka 3-2 in front of 62,241 fans at Saitama Stadium on Saturday. The final whistle saw an outpouring of emotion from the club's fans, who had not only witnessed the Reds lose the 2004 Championship Series final on penalties to Yokohama F. Marinos, but also finish runner-up amidst chaotic scenes on the final day of the 2005 season. It was a case of third time lucky for Urawa, who were ultimately deserving winners of their first ever league trophy.

Not everyone, however, seems to be enamoured with the Urawa brand. For one thing, the club has a reputation for housing some of the more brusque fans in the league. Others have pointed to the financial clout of the Mitsubishi-backed club, arguing that they have enhanced their squad by signing the likes of Washington and Takahito Soma from Tokyo Verdy, and bringing Shinji Ono back from Feyenoord, to the detriment of their own young players. Personally I don't buy it.

The club certainly does have some of the more aggressive fans in the league. But given that their smallest crowd at Saitama Stadium this season was 34,417 - ironically against the league's other big crowd-puller, Albirex Niigata, the law of averages suggests that you might find one or two more vehement fans than you would at other grounds. Besides, these are football fans and as football fans ourselves, we can hardly criticise them for their passion. The same fans did, after all, continue to support the club en masse when Urawa was relegated at the end of the 1999 season.

As for buying players like Washington and Soma, Urawa was just doing what every successful club in every league in the world does, namely cherry-picking the best players from one of their relegated opponents. Few have begrudged Urawa's crosstown rivals Omiya Ardija for having done likewise, given that ex-Tokyo Verdy players Daigo and Yoshiyuki Kobayashi were arguably Omiya's best players this season. That Urawa bought Washington simply proved to be a wise choice, given that he ended the season as the J-League's equal top scorer with Gamba's Magno Alves, while Soma's decision to join Japan's biggest club was understandable.

Re-signing Shinji Ono from Feyenoord demonstrates, if nothing else, that the club maintains cordial relations with their former players. It is hardly Urawa's fault that their first eleven played so well throughout the season that Ono struggled to get a run. Kazuyuki Toda, for example, could seemingly hardly wait to get away from Shimizu S-Pulse when his loan spell at Tottenham Hotspur didn't herald a permanent deal, despite Shimizu being in desperate need of his combative services.

Speaking of Toda, he was one of the key figures in the match that I attended at Nihondaira Stadium on Saturday afternoon. These days Toda plies his trade with Sanfrecce Hiroshima, who happened to be the visitors to Shimizu's atmospheric ground. Toda was given a frosty reception by the Shimizu faithful, that surpassed even the bone-chilling wind blowing down off the hills that surround the stadium. Those fans were apoplectic in their delight, however, when the feisty Toda was given his marching orders after just twenty minutes, following two late tackles. The second prompted an acrobatic tumble from South Korean striker Cho Jae Jin but in truth, Toda should have known better, and he melodramatically removed his jersey as he trudged from the field, to the delight of the otherwise freezing Shimizu fans.

Shimizu eventually won the match 3-0, and more importantly overtook their bitter rivals Jubilo Iwata on the final J-League standings. But the day and the accolades belonged to Urawa Reds. It has been a long wait for the club, and they will say sayonara to their popular German coach Guido Buchwald, who departs at the end of the season to spend more time with his family. The title drought is finally over, however, and Urawa fans will hope that the club has the depth to fly the flag all the way for Japan, in next season's Asian Champions League.